


Saved

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Inline with canon, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Pining, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23014399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Crowley took one look at those wide eyes, and those soft hands, and that smile bright and warm as sunlight, and he knew, with an atom-deep intimacy, that this was to be his punishment, an eternal suffering of craving the single thing he cannot ever have." Crowley long-since resigned himself to wanting what he knows he can't have, but some plans are beyond understanding.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	Saved

Crowley has thought a great deal about the prospect of kissing Aziraphale. It was a wish, at first, the kind of desperate, futile dream that creates the true despair of a hell where every desire is matched by a benign disregard that sears more deeply than a thousand years of Hellfire would do. Crowley has learned to fit himself around the edges of Hell’s restrictions, to find pleasures from humanity’s various offerings rather than those that will be endlessly deprived him by Hell’s bureaucratic rigor; but the angel is the one indulgence he can never be allowed, and some self-destructive impulse hardwired into the core of his soul means there is nothing, not in Heaven or Hell or the vast, startling beauty of Earth, that will sate that craving in him. Crowley took one look at those wide eyes, and those soft hands, and that smile bright and warm as sunlight, and he knew, with an atom-deep intimacy, that this was to be his punishment, an eternal suffering of craving the single thing he cannot ever have.

He grew used to it, after a time. One can grow accustomed to anything, even a hopeless, helpless pining for a creature intended to be one’s archnemesis; but the angel has only been Aziraphale, and never the enemy, and as centuries softened obligation into comfort Crowley found that a great deal of satisfaction could be harvested from the fringes of the forbidden. There is a pleasure to watching Aziraphale’s lashes flutter with rapture over a bite of cake, or a sip of wine; there is a warmth to be found from basking in the glow of that smile, or the softness of that gaze. Crowley craves with an ache that runs through the marrow of his bones, that scores itself to scars across the core of who, of what, he is; but in the expanse of eternity he finds a peace to be made with it, an Agreement with his own desire that allows him to remain at the angel’s side, to linger in a warmth just enough to starve off the bite of frozen loneliness.

Everything changed in the bookshop. Crowley has known for centuries, for millennia, for the whole grand expanse of time itself, who he wants; he had believed he knew the worst Hell had to offer, had believed his suffering was manageable, was a negotiable detail in the job description. But in the roar of the flames, and the scorch of the heat, and a world burned barren with the loss of Aziraphale, Crowley felt the true depth of his damnation, the full scope of his suffering. It wasn’t the thousands of years of pining, it was never the constant dull throb of an adoration left unspoken at the back of his forked tongue: it is this, this moment of absolute, unutterable loss, that rips free the only thing he cannot live without and leaves him to bleed the regrets of six thousand years of lost opportunities. He should have kissed him, he thinks, sitting in the ashes of Aziraphale’s existence with water hissing to steam at his clothes and hair and skin; he should have risked it, just the once, just to have the cold comfort of once knowing the peak of a bliss that is lost, now, scattered beyond the reach of any miracle he can muster.

Beyond the reach of Hell’s power, perhaps; but not Heaven’s, as it turns out. Crowley is sure, at first, that he is hallucinating, that the foggy image across the bar table from him is an invention of a misery-sodden mind reaching for a last mad comfort against the end of times. But then Aziraphale looks at him, and speaks, and if it were possible to undo a Fall Crowley thinks he would Rise right there in that moment, would return himself straight to Heaven for the painful gratitude that surges through him for this reprieve, for this salvation from a Hell of his own making. He fumbles himself through the conversation, too brief to ever be enough and still more absolutely satisfying than anything he has ever known, and after that, well, he would have taken on the full contingent of Hell’s armies, never mind demonic fire, to get himself to Aziraphale’s side.

The peace comes later. There is the fight, the failing, the success and the defeat and, finally, the world reprieved at the hand of a child that has had nothing at all to do with either of them. It is in the ringing silence that follows, in the echo of a trauma undone but still stinging through a body that refuses to ease its hold, that Crowley finally takes a breath, and makes the offer, because he always thought it was denied him but he’s well past the point of trusting anything he thought he knew, and maybe  _ they _ were all part of the Plan too, and for once Crowley doesn’t have the least desire to rebel against where this day has brought him.

The kiss is everything. There is more, later: fumbling touches and tangled clothes and catching breaths that taste like prayer, redemption in the clasp of a hand, in a love so radiant it transforms six thousand years of pining into patience, into a transcendence as brilliant as a glimpse of returned Heaven. But first, and always, and forever: Aziraphale’s hands pressing to Crowley’s face, Crowley’s head tipping to meet the angle of Aziraphale’s, and lips finding each other as a hand found an apple, as wings find the air, as they always, inevitably, find each other.


End file.
